Luck takes the step that no one sees.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC
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Quotes
I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind, and I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy of life.
—Thomas Paine, 1803A traveler’s chief aim should be to make men wiser and better, and to improve their minds by the bad—as well as good—example of what they deliver concerning foreign places.
—Jonathan Swift, 1726I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.
—Grace Moore, 1944The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen, 1955Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there.
—Susanne K. Langer, 1942I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215Rewards and punishment are the lowest form of education.
—Zhuangzi, c. 286 BCChildhood knows what it wants—to leave childhood behind.
—Jean Cocteau, 1947We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.
—Henry Fielding, 1730Hang work! I wish that all the year were holiday; I am sure that Indolence—indefeasible Indolence—is the true state of man.
—Charles Lamb, 1805